Politics & Media

Feb 15, 2013, 08:55AM

Democrats: Blame Teddy Roosevelt For No Serious Gun Control

It’s been two months since
the horrific Newtown shootings, yet the gun control debate—at the time, I
thought that tragedy was the last straw—has pretty much fizzled out. President
Obama still speaks about the issue, but it’s slipped down on his agenda, with
Chuck Hagel, reticence over spending cuts, constant complaints about Republican
obstructionism and his feel-good proposal for pre-school taking precedence.
This dismays TheNewRepublic’s Timothy
Noah, who writes the “TRB From Washington” column for that magazine now (in the
title’s re-design, “TRB” is given less prominence, banished to the jumble of
obtuse articles that owner Chris Hughes pays for), and he makes at least one
very good point. (TNR has a paywall for most content, or at least a very
complicated log-in procedure, which is a bit weird given all the promotion; you’d
think Hughes would adopt a Woodstock-like “it’s a free website now!” approach.)

It’s Noah’s contention, and
a correct one, I think, that liberals—including Obama—are hurting their cause
for gun control by “fetishizing” men and women who use guns to hunt. I’ll get
back to that, but first there’s Noah’s agonized notion that even today, with
Obama’s reelection, broad acceptance of gay marriage, increasing environmental
awareness and enthusiasm for taxes, it’s “still not entirely acceptable to be a liberal.” Could’ve fooled me,
judging by last November’s elections, but he continues: “The lingering taboo
[of identifying yourself as a liberal] is anthropological rather than
ideological. Liberals are judged inauthentic because (at least according to
stereotype) they live in cities, avoid church, and don’t own guns; they feel
the need to describe themselves using other terms.”

That is a stereotype: I live in a city, don’t attend church and have
never owned a gun. I’m not a liberal. And while it makes sense to me that
powerful guns, the kind that are used every night by bad guys on television
shows, ought to be restricted, I don’t give a hoot, unlike Noah, about hunters.
Anyway, while Noah is frustrated over his fellow liberals’ bowing down to, as
Obama said, “the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for
generations,” I think there’s a simple answer.

Teddy Roosevelt.

Roosevelt, by dint of his
dedication to conservation, trust-busting and rhetoric against the wealthy, is,
in liberal-think, the most popular Republican president of the 20th century. And Teddy liked to hunt. A lot. Including today’s hunters—and as
Noah points out, even their ranks have thinned—in a blanket gun-control measure,
would dishonor Mt. Rushmore T.R.

Like Noah, I’ve had exactly
one experience in firing a gun, and, similarly, have no desire to repeat it. I
was 22 and my four brothers and I were on a road trip to the Poconos, and, as
there’s not much to do there, we found ourselves at a shooting range on a late
Saturday afternoon. Can’t really remember which one of us had the best score—we
were all half in the bag—but it wasn’t me. Shooting wasn’t something taught out
in the wilderness when I was a Boy Scout—but hey, my skill at archery is tops!—so
the thrill of hunting never took. Now, several years ago, I did have a very
fascinating telephone conversation with a professional hunter in rural Georgia.
I wanted to get a boar’s head as a Christmas present for my younger son, a
swell decoration for his room, and went back and forth with the hunter over
price, delivery and the like. He went on a run—holiday season was his cash cow,
so to speak—on a Tuesday, and a week later, the taxidermy mount arrived by
FedEx.

In any case, when the gun
control controversy—if it’s still a controversy now, at least until the next
mass murder—bogs down and is watered down, Democrats (whether they fess up as liberals or not) can blame Teddy Roosevelt.

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Discussion

Well, Teddy was the man. I mean, look at that elephant he felled in that picture. Lots of these gunnuts these days are simply paranoid cowards with delusions of grandeur, thinking their measly chest of arms will stop any kind of government takeover. Teddy Roosevelt is as much to blame as the weakness of Democrats to take a stand one way or the other.